


Go fish

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hospitals, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: It's Christmas Eve, and Steve and Billy are spending the night alone in the military hospital for arbitrary testing after the events in summer. It's lonely and boring. They find a better way to pass the time (but probably not how you'd think).
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 11
Kudos: 114
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2019





	Go fish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avalonlights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalonlights/gifts).



> Happy holidays avalonlights!! Thanks you so, SO much for pinch-hitting <3 I hope you enjoy this holiday gift! 
> 
> Thank you g for beta-reading this!

Steve is so goddamn sick of doctors. He’s almost ready to just deal with whatever shitty aftereffects come from the drugs the Russians pumped him with, just for the sake of not having to be here. Sure, it might suck, but he also reckons it has a fifty percent chance of being better than this unique hell, where he’s subjected to test after test from military doctors who won’t tell him shit and expect him to run on treadmills for three hours at a time. Honestly, at this point, even if quitting just pisses the doctors off he’ll call it a win.

The only silver lining is that Billy Hargrove has it worse. But Steve doesn’t really feel like that’s a silver lining. When he looks over at Billy, on the other side of the hospital ward, curled beneath thin blankets while the moon shines its pale light through the grimy window, he doesn’t feel smug. He just feels sad.

He tried talking to Billy on those first few days, when their visits were broken up into single appointments and they only crossed paths in the waiting room. But Billy only ever grunted in response, refusing to look Steve in the eye. And now they’re staying overnight, and with every phone call Steve receives to wish him a Merry Christmas, Billy gets quieter and quieter, until Steve almost doesn’t want to breathe because it might upset him.

A cloud drifts over the moon, and in the new darkness, Steve sees Billy open his eyes, just for a second, and regard him. The soft light from the twinkling Christmas lights, wrapped around the most threadbare tree Steve has ever seen in the corner of the ward, reflect in his eyes and disguise his emotion. But Steve wonders if it isn’t just his imagination that Billy’s eyes are wet. 

“Hey,” he says softly, without thinking, and then freezes. What does he say next? Should he ask how Billy is, or will that just make things worse?

Before he can make a decision, Billy says, “Hey.”

The moon reappears, and this time Steve can see the expression on Billy’s face: surprise. Relief.

Steve glances at the clock: eleven thirty two. On Christmas Eve. “Pretty shit way to spend Christmas, isn’t it?”

Billy shrugs one shoulder, still lying on his side with his arm hooked beneath his head. “Could be worse.”

At first, Steve doesn’t know how, and then he thinks of the empty house waiting for him and the only two people who haven’t called, and he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it could be.”

“Get any good presents this year, pretty boy?” Billy asks after a while, his voice a low rumble in the night.

“Don’t know yet, do I?” Steve says with a laugh.

“You wait until Christmas morning to open them?” Billy props himself up on his elbow, a hint of a smile on his face for the first time in weeks. “That’s lame.”

“Well, what’d you get?” Steve asks pointedly.

Billy’s smile fades. “Same thing I always get.”

Steve’s stomach sinks, and he doesn’t want to know, not if the expression on Billy’s face is anything to go by. There’s something vulnerable in it, the upturned tick in the centre of his brow worrying Steve in a way he can’t articulate. He realizes, abruptly, that he isn’t prepared to know Billy. In all the weeks he’s spent passing him, trying to get him to talk, hating him when he won’t, he hasn’t actually considered what he would do if Billy  _ did  _ speak to him. Because obviously things won’t be how they were, can  _ never _ be how they were. 

Steve doesn’t know what they might be instead, doesn’t want to examine the fluttering in his stomach that tells him what he  _ wants  _ them to be. So he doesn’t want Billy to tell him what the present is that makes his face do that.

But Billy tells him anyway, the smile returning with a twist that makes Steve flinch.

“A blank card and a ten dollar note.”

“Wow,” Steve mutters, stomach sinking even as a rush of something entirely different pulses through him.  _ We’re the same _ , he thinks. And the warmth of it hurts. “That’s… heartwarming.”

“Real tight-knit family.” Billy grins, wolfish. “That’s us.”

Compelled, the words are out before Steve even realizes he’s about to speak. “My dad’s secretary sends me a cheque.”

Dancing green and red lights highlight the raised eyebrows, the parted lips. Billy sits up in the bed, blankets pooling around his hips, and Steve realizes suddenly that Billy sleeps shirtless.

“Shit,” Billy mutters. “I can’t work out what’s worse.”

Steve mirrors him, wincing as he knocks the IV drip in his forearm and adjusting his seat so he’s propped against the wall, facing the other bed. He doesn’t know what the IV does, but he’s sick to death of walking around with it. There has to be some kind of law against the doctors keeping them here over Christmas for arbitrary testing, but then, it’s not like this place follows the law anyway.

“They sound about the same,” Steve says quietly.

“Yeah.” Billy’s voice is gruff, and he won’t look at Steve. “They do.”

Steve gets an idea. It’s stupid and lame and he blames whatever painkiller they’ve stuck in his IV drip. He grabs the notepad from his bedside table, tears out a page and wraps it hurriedly around the only other item in the drawer. Then he lobs it at Billy’s head before he can change his mind.

Billy flinches, rage flashing across his features before it turns into a frown as he looks from Steve to the weighty object and back again. Steve raises one eyebrow, saying nothing, and waits while Billy slowly unfolds the paper. 

He holds up the worn deck of cards with a blank expression.

“Now you’ve got a new present,” Steve says lightly.

“Pretty sure my ten dollar note could buy me a better deck than this.”

“Ah, but would it have a scribbled-over joker to replace the King of Hearts?” Steve grins at him, accidentally putting on his old  _ Steve Harrington, King of flirting _ expression before he can think twice.

It doesn’t escape his notice that Billy stutters at the sight, eyes roaming Steve’s face for a second before he carefully, deliberately winks. 

“Why don’t you come on over here, then, pretty boy,” he murmurs. “We can play with my present.”

A little shiver runs down Steve’s spine, and he wonders, again, what exactly is going to happen to the two of them now that everything has changed. He doesn’t wonder too long—just gets out of bed and drags his IV drip across the room. Billy’s breath hitches, and Steve pretends he doesn’t notice, sitting cross-legged in the space across from Billy.

He pretends not to notice that, apparently, Billy sleeps without pants, either. A hint of his briefs is visible above the blanket, and the line of the fabric above his hips suggests… yeah. There are no tracksuit pants below. Billy shifts backwards, making room, and Steve tries not to feel a little too like red riding hood getting into bed with the wolf.

“What are we playing?” Steve asks, and resolutely ignores the way Billy’s eyes gleam in the light.

“Go fish?”

Steve sputters, looking at Billy properly for the first time. Billy just watches him, eyebrows lifted like he’s politely waiting for Steve to answer.

“Don’t you mean, like, poker or something? Black jack?”

“You want to play poker?” Billy grins like he knows exactly what Steve is thinking.

“Just seems a little… tame for you.”

Billy shrugs, one shoulder creeping up to his ear in a movement so casual and normal Steve wonders how he’s never seen it before. He’s never seen Billy anything but aggressive. Or sad.

“You can still strip in Go Fish,” Billy says.

This time, Steve laughs, louder than he means to so the sound fills the empty, sterile ward. The corners of Billy’s mouth tick up into a smile, and then he’s dealing the cards and they’re playing Go Fish on Christmas Eve like children. It’s the most surreal experience Steve has ever had, Upside Down included, as Billy politely tells him again and again to go fish, and Steve slowly racks up his stack of pairs.

“Go fish.” Billy leans back against the pillows, somehow making the threadbare, regulation issue pieces of shit look like a throne, and laughs as Steve draws, yet again, a card from the pile.

“Can’t believe you don’t have any aces,” Steve says, shaking his head, and then it hits him. He freezes, the draw card halfway to his hand. “Wait a second.”

Billy starts laughing—cackling—the sound echoing from the white walls around them. “You can’t put it back now, Harrington,” he says in the middle of laughing so hard it’s like an old man wheezing. “You’ve looked at it.”

“Like hell I can’t,” Steve says, throwing the card—a King—at Billy’s head and trying not to smile. “You’ve been cheating this whole time.”

Billy only laughs louder, and Steve throws his whole hand at him, then his pile of pairs, then Billy’s pile for good measure. Billy yanks the blanket, sending Steve tumbling backwards, choking on laughter, while cards fly everywhere.

The IV gets tangled and Steve winces, hissing as he carefully sits upright and adjusts it. Billy instantly sobers, sitting up with a small frown creasing his forehead. 

“Shit,” he mutters. “You okay?”

Steve doesn’t know how to answer that. He’s fine, of course, but Billy asking at all… it sends him reeling. Leaves him feeling like a boat swept too far out to sea. It’s terrifying, unknown, and yet… somehow where he’s meant to be. He swallows thickly, noting how Billy’s eyes drop to the movement.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m fine.” His eyes drop to the clock beside the bed, and he blinks in surprise. It’s Christmas, and they hadn’t even noticed. “Merry Christmas,” he says, taking in the way Billy’s eyebrows shoot up, the pleasant flush on his cheeks as he bites back a smile.

“Merry Christmas,” he says and struggles visibly to smother a yawn.

Immediately, Steve’s entire face breaks into a gaping yawn, and he realizes how tired he is. Quiet laughter greets him as he opens his eyes, and he can’t help smiling at the soft expression on Billy’s face.

“Probably should sleep, I guess,” Billy says, glancing over at Steve’s bed.

There’s a furrow in his brow again, a tightness to his jaw that Steve can’t explain. He looks over at the bed too, cold and empty on the other side of the room, and he doesn’t want to go. He can’t make himself move. It’s been so long since he shared a bed with someone else, and after everything that’s happened, god, he wants to.

But there’s no way he can ask. There’s no way the two of them can be  _ that. _

Then he sees the look on Billy’s face, properly sees it, and he realizes he still doesn’t know what they can be, now. He won’t know until he tries. And after everything he’s seen and done, a little risk for something like this seems worth it.

“Can I—” he begins, but Billy’s already holding the blanket open, the remaining cards spilling down onto the floor beside them.

Steve slides into the warmth, shivering at the press of Billy’s heated skin against his pajamas. They lie side by side, and for all the strangeness of it, Steve immediately begins to fall asleep, cozy in the unique comfort of sharing his space with someone else. As he drifts off, the last thing he notices is the warmth of an arm sliding over his waist, drawing him close, and the reflection of green and red lights dancing across his closed eyes.


End file.
